University of Ghana makes progress in reducing gender gap

The University of Ghana (UG) has made significant progress in reducing the gap in access to higher education between the genders.

Professor Ebenezer Oduro Owusu, the Vice Chancellor of the University, said at the beginning of the 2016/2017 Academic Year, for the main campus, Accra City Campus, Korle-Bu Campus and the Distance Education programmes, the University offered admission to a total of 24,312 applicants comprising 20,621 undergraduate students and 3,691 graduate students.

He said at the Undergraduate Level, 3,841 or 50.47 per cent of the registered students were males while 3,770 or 49.53 per cent were females.

At the Graduate Level, 1,702 or 57.89 per cent of the registered students were males, while 1,238 or 42.11 per cent were females.

"We are therefore close to achieving the national objective of 50:50 male - female ratio in tertiary admissions," Prof Owusu stated in his report to the November Congregation of the UG.

This congregation covers the second batch of students, who completed their programmes of study in the 2015/2016 Academic Year. The first batch graduated in July this year.

"Further admissions will be made during the course of the year for Special programmes and Sandwich programmes," he explained.

He said the University continued to increase access through its policy of offering the opportunity of university education to applicants from Less Endowed Schools and applicants with disability.

"The admission of sports men and sports women through the UG Policy for the Admission of Athlete Students (PAAS) Policy is also in its third year and is already bearing fruit,” he said.

"In June-July 2016, Team UG participated and performed excellently at the Federation of African Universities Sports (FASU) Games in South Africa," he said.

He said the team competed in five out of the nine disciplines and won four gold medals, seven silver medals and five bronze medals to place seventh out of 35 universities.

"We are extremely proud of Desmond Aryee, who was ranked the fourth best performer in athletics by the competition organisers, after running an impressive personal best 10.40 seconds to take the Men’s 100 metres final in the track and field championships.

"It has been reported that more than half of the medals were won by athletes we admitted through the UG-PAAS.

"There is, therefore, no doubt that our strategy to use this means to enhance our performance at various national and international events is working and we need to continue firming up these achievements by investing in our sporting infrastructure."

"At Legon, we place high premium on the cross-cultural experiences that is made possible by the presence of international students on our campuses,” he said.

"We are happy to report that for this academic year, 761 undergraduate and 229 graduate international students of various nationalities were admitted into our programmes."

He said in the 2010-2011 Academic Year, the University introduced a new-four year degree progamme and revised several existing ones.

Prof Owusu said the grading system was also overhauled and the thresholds raised with the aim of improving the quality of graduates from the University.

"We are in the seventh academic year since the implementation of this restructured degree programme and today’s graduating undergraduate class is part of the fourth cohort of students under the revised programme," Prof Owusu said.

He said the University would review the programme and provide recommendations to make our graduates and programmes more relevant to national development.

This academic year also saw the offer of new programmes, including the re-introduction of the Bachelor of Arts in Administration programme in the College of Humanities to offer students the opportunity to combine business related subjects with other subjects in the Humanities.

He said the College of Education had also rolled out new programmes; "These are the Bachelor of Arts in Education and Bachelor of Science in Education to offer more choices to our undergraduate students".

He urged the graduating students to understand that education was expected to continue beyond the walls of the lecture hall into the community and work place and into adulthood.

"As you enter the job market, I urge you to continue to improve upon these critical skills. Remember that it is a competitive world and to be in the lead, you need to always strive to make a difference; just a one degree shift from the norm and you will be in the lead," Prof Owusu advised.